Over Rs. 41 crore collected from the public in the name of tackling child malnutrition in Maharashtra has never been used for the intended purpose, a public interest litigation petition before the Bombay High Court has revealed. Instead, the money was diverted for paying salaries to busmen and buying fuel and tyres, authorities admitted to The Hindu .
The money was collected as surcharge from public transport services in Pune and adjoining Pimpri-Chinchwad city over a 15-year period. The Child Nutrition Surcharge (CNS) was imposed on bus passengers in this region in 1997 by the Shiv Sena-BJP government after it came to light that around 1,500 children died of malnutrition in Vidarbha’s Melghat region. The surcharge was 10 paise for a ticket costing less than Rs. 2 and 15 paise for higher fare.
The money thus collected was to be transferred to the bank account of the Regional Transport Office and then disbursed to the government department concerned. However, it was not done, a Right to Information query filed by advocate Asim Sarode in 2012 reveals.
“Not a single rupee has been deposited in the account from June 1997. When we filed the PIL in 2012, the amount was about Rs. 41 crore. It must have increased by now,” Mr. Sarode told The Hindu .
When contacted, Pravin Ashtikar, joint managing director of the Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Ltd. (PMPML) that runs the bus service in the area, admitted that the money was not deposited but denied that it was siphoned off. “We are running into major losses, so we had to use all our funds, including the surcharge, for our own day-to-day operations,” he told The Hindu .
In 2012, the transport body asked the government to exempt it from depositing the CNS. It admitted it had spent the money on buying fuel, tyres and spare parts and on salaries.
The PMPML faces losses, estimated at Rs. 145 crore in 2013-14, and is now considering taking a loan to pay the government the CNS.
The court has sought expenditure details from the PMPML and asked it to file its reply by June 16.
